A Lost Tourist in Manila

Lately, I don't seem to recall the first part of my dreams. I have vague snippets of visuals, I don't recall my reason for being there.Then again, it is a dream, do I need to have a reason? Most of us are jumpers in our own dreams, we seem to teleport to one dreamlike state to the next.



First Arc:
I remember being in waist-deep flood waters, but there was so much waterlilies everywhere you can hardly get through. The water was stagnant, but I know this type of flood was caused by a typhoon. I remember being on a jeep that cruised through the floods without stalling. It seemed to function more like a boat than a jeep.

Second Arc:
My friend Ria was playing tourist in Manila. I find her in a halfway house, in a room under a staircase. She was shaking and scared when I opened the door. But she was wearing winter clothes like the ones when I was with her in Berlin. The stairway was situated in the middle of this carinderia. People just kept eating, they seem to either ignore her or not see er at all. The room under the staircase seem to have a different perspective, it looked bigger and spacious from where I stood. But I knew it to be impossible since the door was the width of the stair case.



A bus arrives in front of the carinderia (a local cheap diner) with a sign board that says Pasong Tamo. I get Ria safely on the bus, I tell her to go to my house and wait for me. I promise to take her to the airport and book her a flight back to LA. But she seemed reluctant, she told me she needed to bring pasalubong (a Filipino custom of affection by bringing home gifts to relatives and friends). I told her Americans don't need pasalubong, only pinoys do. But she insisted that I pack her a luggage full of Jack and Jill potato chips, pirated DVDs and a video game console with a Japanese subtitling mechanism for her Japanese lover. In real life, she has no Japanese lover.

With Ria gone, I was left at the halfway house/carinderia. I started bunking inside the room under the stairs. There I suddenly had roommates: my old high school classmate, Flor and my first grade teacher, Mrs. David. Both of them start helping me secure the potato chips.

My relatives out of nowhere start offering their precious heirloom glasswares for my supposed guests, my classmate and my teacher.

As I pack the potato chips, Flor shows me how the video game and its microchips work, so I can work the Japanese subtitles.

I wake up.

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This is one of those senseless dreams, that random people from my life pop in and out, seemingly out of thin air for various inane reasons such as glasswares and potato chips.

I haven't heard from Ria in months except that she left California to campaign for Obama in Ohio. Flor just added me this month in Facebook. My relatives I last saw at my uncle's funeral. As for my first grade teacher, I don't know where she lives now.